Excerpt:

>Ngārimu Blair, deputy chair for Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei people, said the tribe had only a handful of significant artefacts left, after most were lost in successive waves of looting by early “treasure hunters”, urbanisation and displacement.

>“We have so very few of these taonga and treasures left in our possession,” he said. “When something like this comes up where we’re both excited, but also that sorrowful that we lost so much.”

>The Sotheby’s auctions, which close in a week, include a carved pounamu (greenstone) club, or “mere”. It was originally given by Ngāti Whātua chief Pāora Tūhaere to a British vice-admiral in 1886, on condition it remained in the man’s family, according to a newspaper report at the time.

>As the mere has now passed out of the family’s hands it should be returned, Blair said, and the tribe hoped a future buyer would consider repatriating it.

>“We hope those involved in this auction understand Tūhaere’s people are not extinct nor relics, and we are inextricably linked still to this taonga,” he said.

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>Other New Zealand artefacts being sold by Sotheby’s this week include a Tewhatewha staff, and the remains of extremely rare New Zealand birds – the leg bones of the now-extinct four-metre (12ft) tall moa, and a brooch made from the beak of a huia, a wattlebird believed to be extinct since 1907.

>Sotheby’s has sold a number of high-value Māori artefacts, including some of unknown provenance. In 2019, an Arawa tekoteko carving sold for US$740,000 (£‎608,000). The auction description noted that it was “a major Māori sculpture” but said it had “no remaining trace of its original provenance”.

>In 2014, the sale of a carving valued at NZ$3.1m caused controversy in New Zealand, with academics and tribal authorities calling for the government to work for its return.

>The auction comes as international museums, governments and private collectors wrestle with the question of ownership of Indigenous artefacts – particularly those obtained through colonisation, looting or war.

Tess McClure in Auckland, 12 Jan. 2023.